Metallurgical furnace.



U. WEDGE.

METALLURGCAL PURNAGE.

APPLICATION FILED MAY 3.1911.

Lm, Patented Lmn.5,1915.

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U. WEDGB.

MBTALLURGIGAL FURNACE.

APPLICATION ULEB MAY s. 1911.

THE MORRIS PETERS C0,Y PHOTO-LITHQ, WASHINGTON. D. C

Patented J all. 5, 1915.

U. WEDGE.

METALLURGIGAL FURNAGE.

APPLICATION FILED MAY 3. 1911.

lylgg. Patented JaIL5, 1915.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

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sacarse @FIC METALLURGICAL FURNACE.

Application filed May 3, 1911.

To all whom t may concern Be it known that I, UrLEir WEDGE, a citizen of the United States, residing in Ardmore, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, have invented certain Improvements in Metallurgical Furnaces, &c., of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to a structure (hereinafter, for convenience, referred to as a furnace) for roasting, heating, drying7 calcining, cooling, or otherwise treating powdered or granular masses of ore or other material, and particularly to that class of such furnaces which have a series of superposed hearths over each of which the material is fed and from each of which it falls through suitable openings onto the hearth below.

The object of my invention is to provide simple, economical and eflicient means for supporting the hearths and working chamber arches in a furnace of large diameter.

In the accompanying drawingsMFigure 1 is a vertical sectional view of suflicient of a furnace of the type to which my invention relates to illustrate the application of my invention thereto; Fig. 2 is a similar view of another type of my invention; Fig. 3 is a horizontal section on the line a-a, Fig. 1, with part of the hearth broken away to show the structure beneath, and Fig. 4 is an enlarged sectional view of part of the furnace structure.

In the drawings, 1 represents the outer wall of the furnace, which is usually cylindrical, and 2 represents a central, rotating shaft carrying projecting arms 3 upon which are mounted blades or rabbles 4 for stirring the ore or other material under treatment and feeding it over the successive superposed hearths with which furnaces of this type are usually provided. I-Iitherto these hearths have been built in the form of brickwork arches or beams supported upon the outer wall and having central openings for the reception of the shaft 2 and of the refractory protecting blocks 5 with which the same is usually provided, in order to protect it from the heat of the furnace. In furnaces of large diameter, however, this method of building the hearths will be impracticable, and I therefore employ transverse girders 6 spanning the furnace from wall to wall and suitably built into the wall at their opposite ends, or, by preference, mounted upon vertical beams or columns 1a of metal embedded in the wall or having the Specicaton of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 5, 1915. Serial No. 624.792.

wall built in segments extending from one beam or column to the neXt, as shown in Fig. 3. Upon the transverse girders 6 I lay the tiles which constitute the hearths of the furnace, there being one set of girders 6 for each hearth. In order, however, to provide a more effective support for the tiles 7, it is preferable to employ short beams 9 spanning the spaces between adjoining girders 6, thus providing a grid or framework upon which the tiles may be laid and whereby they will be supported at the sides as well as at the ends. The arches or roofs of the various working chambers of the furnace are also supported upon the girders 6, the under sides of the latter having secured to them short transverse beams or channels 10, to which are fitted the edges of the tiles 1l constituting the working chamber roof or arch.

The spaces between the girders 6 and between the hearth and arch tiles 7 and 11 constitute chambers through which air may be permitted to circulate for cooling purposes, or, on the other hand, when the furnace is wholly or in part of the muflie type, these chambers may constitute heating chambers and may receive products of combustion from a furnace 12 suitably located, as shown in Fig. 1.

Vhere the treating hearths are of large radius, as in my improved furnace, the usual plan of feeding the material under treatment throughout the entire width of the hearth before discharging it onto the hearth below will in many cases be impracticable because of the amount of time required. Instead, therefore, of providing each hearth with a single set of openings for the discharge of the material therefrom onto the hearth below, I provide alternate hearths with a plurality of such sets of openings located at different distances from the axis of the furnace, and I so mount the rabbles upon the rabble-carrying arms that they will feed the material in reverse directions over the hearths.

In the furnace shown in the drawing, the openings 13 formed in the roof of the furnace for the feeding of the material onto the upper hearth are so disposed that said material will be fed onto said upper hearth midway between the central shaft and the wall of the furnace, the upper hearth having delivery openings a? adjacent to the wall and adjacent to the shaft, the hearth below having its delivery openings y midway of its width, the hearth below that having the delivery openings adjacent to the wall and shaft, and so on, through the furnace.

The rabbles in the uppermostworking chamber are so disposed as to feed part of the material outwardly from the intermediate portion of the hearth toward the outer delivery openings and another portion inwardly from said intermediate portion of the l'iearth toward the inner delivery openings, while, in the chamber below, the rabbles are reversely arranged, so as to feed the material from the outer and inner portions of the hearth toward the intermediate delivery openings therein, the rabbles in each of the other working chambers being so disposed as to likewise feed the material over the hearths from the point or points of supply to the point or points of discharge. By this means the material can, in a furnace of largediameter, be fed through the furnace with the facility and at the same rate of speed as in a furnace of smaller diameter.

In the structure shown in Fig. :2, the upper chambers constitute a heating section and are provided with outer inclosing walls but the lower 'chambers constitute a cooling section and are open at the sides or the entire structure may be open at the sides if desired when intended only for cooling purposes, and may receive from another structure the material which is to be cooled.

I claim:

l. A. metallurgical furnace having an an- Copies of this patent may be obtained for nually arranged series of vertical columns, transverse girders connecting oppositely disposed columns of the series, and beams supported' upon said girders and disposed at an angle thereto, certain of said beams being discontinued between the central pair of girders so as to provide an vopening for the reception of a central rabble-carrying shaft.

2. The combination, in a metallurgical furnace, of an annularly disposed series of vertical columns, transverse girders connecting opposite columns of the series, beams supported upon said girders and disposed at an angle thereto, said beams having vertical and horizontal flanges, and slabs supported upon the horizontal flanges of said beams and filling the spaces between the vertical flanges thereof.

3. The combination, in a metallurgical furnace, of an annular-ly arranged series of vertical columns, transverse girders connecting oppositely disposed columns of said series, and two sets of beams disposed one set above and the other set below a set of girders, the upper beams carrying the hearth of one chamber and the lower beams carrying the roof of the chamber below.

In testimony whereof, I have signed my name to this specification, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

UTLEY IVEDGE.

Witnesses z KATE A. BEADLE, HAMILTON D. TURNER.

ive cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. C. 

